1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to reading tools and particularly to a decoding reading tool with a display window.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The majority of children who are struggling with learning to read have visual and/or language based deficits. Deficits in visual perception and processing, or in the language based skills of phonological processing, and/or comprehension may be seen. Of interest here are the visual processing difficulties these children exhibit. It is common for struggling readers to be visually overwhelmed by the amount of print on a page, to have trouble with eye tracking smoothly from left to right, to have trouble visually isolating one word from another and/or with perceiving each letter within a word. Consequently, learning to decode words and developing an adequate sight word vocabulary is a struggle for these children.
Other devices have been developed to aid in reading instruction. However, none of these is completely effective for the types of deficiencies mentioned above. U.S. Pat. No. 6,358,059 discloses a decoding wheel that can be used to teach the sounds of letter combinations, but is not directly related to reading print on a full page as viewed in a book.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,445,864 discloses a device that has a housing and a paper tape with rotatable spools. A student can view letters and words though a display window. This enables a student to progressively pronounce and decode words letter by letter. However, the device is limited in what can be displayed, and cannot be used with a printed book.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,979,902 discloses a device for restricting the field of vision of a reader, limiting that field to a narrow focus. While this device allows a reader to practice while viewing a standard page, it restricts the reader to only one narrow field of view. Thus, the device has no means to expand that field of view as the student improves.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,055,908 teaches a device that can be used on a printed page. It works like a typing stand. A page is held in a clipboard and sliding frame is positioned above the page. The frame obscures a line of text and has a slider that reveals one letter, syllable or word to enable students to decode a word on the page. While this device can be used on a page, it is difficult to use it on a book. Moreover, the frame only covers one or two lines of the text. Often students are confused and distracted by the totality of words on a page. This device does nothing to alleviate that.
Along the lines of the last device, several devices are commercially available to aid in reading. These devices can be used with books as well as plain pages. Typically, they obscure a portion of a page and highlight one line of text for reading. The problem with these devices is the same as the latter device. Because they do not obscure the entire page, they cannot easily highlight a specific letter or letter combination.
Finally, a device designed to help readers track across a page has two frames that highlight a letter or two on a page. The device is designed to be slid across a page as the student reads. Again, the problems with this device are the inability to obscure the entire page and the inability to expand the viewing “window” beyond one or two letters.